Cash deposit apparatuses are used for depositing cash such as coins, notes (bills), cheques or coupons. A cash deposit apparatus is typically a stand-alone apparatus which is used on a self-service basis by an arbitrary, untrained user visiting a public site such as a bank office, mall, shopping area, store, etc.
When using a typical cash deposit apparatus, the user will place his cash in a cash input area, whereby the cash deposit apparatus will discriminate between acceptable cash, such as valid coins in a plurality of different denominations in one or more specified currencies, and unacceptable cash, such as fake (counterfeit) coins or coins of a foreign currency. A coin acceptance module handles the discrimination of coins and acts to count the acceptable coins, and also to sort them provided that the coin acceptance module has sorting capabilities, whereas the unacceptable cash will be rejected. A value related to the acceptable cash as counted is determined, normally either as the total value of the counted cash, or the total value minus a certain commission fee or plus a certain bonus. The determined value may be a printed on a receipt or voucher which is dispensed to the user so as to allow later redemption of the value at a checkout counter, service desk, etc, or the value may be credited to a bank account or credit card belonging to the user. The deposited cash is stored inside the cash deposit apparatus for later collection by authorized personnel such as guards or personnel from a CIT (Cash-In-Transit) company.
A cash deposit apparatus usually has a user interface which the user of the apparatus will avail himself of when using the apparatus. The user interface typically includes a display and a set of operation keys. These elements of the user interface are controlled from a controller in the apparatus, such as a personal computer (PC) or another kind of microprocessor-based control system. The controller also controls the overall operation of the internal parts of the cash deposit apparatus.
Cash deposit apparatuses have been in commercial use since the late 1980's and have grown very popular. Nevertheless, there is a general problem with long service times, i.e. the time it takes for the apparatus to serve a particular user. Shortcomings in this regard can in particular be identified for certain kinds of cash deposit apparatuses, namely the ones that are configured to handle depositions of more than one different type of cash. A common example of such a cash deposit apparatus is one that is configured both for coin depositions and for note depositions. Since coins and notes are physically very different types of cash, the cash deposit apparatus is typically equipped with separate coin processing unit and note processing unit, which may be integrated into one common apparatus housing with a common user interface unit and a central apparatus controller. Such a combined cash deposit apparatus is flexible in the sense that it can be used both by users that want to deposit coins and by users that want to deposit notes.
Some known combined cash deposit apparatuses may even allow the same individual user to deposit both coins and notes. However, the user will have to perform the different depositions sequentially, such that coins are first deposited and processed, and then notes, or vice versa. This sequential operation will cause long service times, since the total time for expediting a user will be the transaction time for the coin deposition and processing plus the transaction time for the note deposition and processing. A long service time is disadvantageous both for the currently served user and the ones that are waiting in line to use the apparatus.